Race For Your Life, Vanellope Von Schweetz
by jbwarner86
Summary: When Taffyta accuses Vanellope of cheating, the plucky president of Sugar Rush sets out to prove that she can still be a great racer even without exploiting her glitch. But after a disastrous accident on the newest track in the game, Vanellope begins to suspect that her rival may have a point after all.
1. Chapter 1

Vanellope tore around the outside corner of the track in a cloud of sugary dust. The finish line was less than a quarter mile away, and if she could make it down the home stretch without incident, she knew she'd have a lock on first place. The roar of her fellow racers' karts behind her was nothing but quiet background noise as she focused on her goal. She'd done this almost a hundred times before. Nothing to it…

And then, from out of nowhere, an all-too-familiar bright magenta racecar pulled up on Vanellope's right. From the driver's seat, Taffyta Muttonfudge shot her a disgusting self-congratulatory smirk that sent a stab of unease through Vanellope's stomach. She couldn't lose, not now, not to her rival, not when she was this close…

But Taffyta had pulled directly ahead of her, sweeping back and forth across the track to box her in. No matter which way Vanellope swerved, she couldn't pull out in front. The finish line was only a hundred yards away now. Vanellope's eyes widened with shock as she noticed Taffyta had just snagged a Power-Up box. A torrent of Sprinkle Spikes spilled out of the back of her car, glistening as they tumbled and threatening to spin Vanellope's kart across the track…

Vanellope shut her eyes tight and concentrated on her destination.

VOOP.

The spikes rolled harmlessly away as Vanellope and her vehicle glitched twenty yards ahead, reappearing in front of Taffyta's kart in a burst of blue pixels. Taffyta's jaw dropped in fury as she saw Vanellope fly across the checkered finish line. A massive cheer went up from the crowd of candy denizens. The letters flashed bold and red in midair above Vanellope's car: 1st PLACE!

Taffyta pounded her dashboard in frustration as the other seven racers blew by her, skidding to a stop just over the finish line. Swizzle Malarkey, Jubileena Bing-Bing, Gloyd Orangeboar, and Adorabeezle Winterpop all leapt from their cars and hoisted Vanellope aloft on their shoulders. Vanellope punched the air in triumph, laughing with glee.

Candy confetti rained from the sky as Sour Bill, still wearing his usual glum expression, walked onto the track carrying a massive peppermint-colored trophy. Vanellope lifted it over her head and cheered along with her adoring public as more words blinked overhead: 10th CONSECUTIVE WIN! YOU HAVE BEEN AWARDED THE PEPPERMINT CUP! CONGRATULATIONS!

Seething, Taffyta glared at the enormous Jumbotron monitor displaying the player on the opposite side of the screen, a mousy-haired girl with glasses. She was pumping her fist in the air and mouthing something that looked like "All right!" She seemed quite pleased with her victory. Just like she had been the last nine times today. And in each and every one of those races, she'd selected Vanellope as her avatar.

Cheeky little Vanellope Von Schweetz, beloved president of _Sugar Rush_, everybody's favorite character, and the racer with the highest stats in the game. With that glitchy teleporting power of hers, she'd become an instant fan favorite as soon as she'd rejoined the ranks of playable characters. Not only did the players love her, but the other racers all thought she was awesome too.

All except one.

As the rest of the racers carried Vanellope off the track, still cheering wildly, Taffyta slumped back in the driver's seat, her hands balled into tiny bitter fists. She hadn't won a race in a month, neither as an avatar nor an NPC, ever since Vanellope had been reconnected to the game's code and become a playable character again. Sure, Taffyta had been right there alongside her fellow racers, apologizing profusely for how they'd mistreated her while they'd been electronically brainwashed by the sinister Turbo. But now, watching Vanellope rack up all those victories was starting to take its toll, gnawing away at Taffyta's conscience like a parasite.

_Why should she get all the glory?_ she thought in spite of herself. _People only love her 'cause she can do that glitchy thing. If it wasn't for that, oh brother, I'd mop the floor with her…_

* * *

Wreck-It Ralph squinted as he stepped out into the bright lights of Game Central Station. It was always a bit of a chore for his eyes to adjust from the inky night sky of his own game to the illuminated bustle of the power strip hub. Litwak's Arcade had just closed for the night, and the atrium was abuzz with the chatter of hundreds of video game characters.

"So," Ralph asked, flexing his back (he was still a little sore from his sixteenth drop off the roof of Niceland Apartments that day), "what's on the agenda for you guys tonight?"

At Ralph's side stood his good buddy and 30-year adversary, Fix-It Felix Jr., a glistening medal draped around his neck. Bouncing slightly beside him was Q-bert, the tiny orange puffball who'd taken up residence in _Fix-It Felix Jr._ as a bonus character.

"Oh, big plans!" Felix beamed. "Me and Tamora are steppin' out over at _Dance Dance Revolution_. Golly, can you believe it's already our one-month anniversary? Boy oh boy, where does the time go?"

"I always knew you kids would make it," Ralph laughed.

Felix began to blush. "Aw, she's the ginchiest, isn't she?"

"%*&$ !" exclaimed Q-bert.

Just then, an armor-clad hand yanked Felix's hat down over his eyes. Felix lifted it up to see his wife, the hard-as-nails Sgt. Tamora Jean Calhoun, smiling down at him.

"Miss me, Sugarcakes?" she smirked.

Felix leapt up and kissed her. "Aw, all the time, Snoogumbunches! How was war today?"

Calhoun brushed the hair out of her eyes and gazed off at nothing in particular. "Never gets any easier, dear. After a long hard day of blasting the bejeepers out of those slobbering metal monsters, I sure as heck wouldn't say no to a little downtime. So who's ready to put some steel-toe to those arrow pads?"

Felix smiled, then spun around to his massive colleague. "Ralph, you wanna come along?"

Ralph ran one of his huge hands through his unkempt brown hair. "Oh gee, y'know, thanks and all, but I wouldn't want to be like a third wheel or anything…"

"None of that sissy talk, soldier!" Calhoun barked playfully. "Consider this an invitation!"

Ralph chuckled, then turned as he heard a familiar high-pitched voice behind him.

"Heya, Stinkbrain, look what I won today!"

There stood Vanellope, holding her Peppermint Cup and grinning with pride. She bounced on the balls of her feet, clearly having waited all day to share this news with her best friend.

"Wow!" Ralph said as he knelt down. "Awesome trophy, Vanellope! What's the occasion?"

"How about winning ten races in a row?" Vanellope squeaked, brimming with energy. "First time I've ever pulled that off in one day! I was in the _zone_, man! You shoulda seen it! I was all like NEEYROOM! And then it was like RRRRTT! And they all went like HHHAAAHHH! It was my best day of racing _ever_!"

"Way to go, kid!" Ralph laughed. "You rule that race track!"

"Heck yeah I do!" Vanellope concurred, bumping fists with Ralph. "Top shelf!"

Calhoun and Felix both admired Vanellope's trophy. "Congratulations, short-stuff!" Calhoun praised. "You deserve such delicious accolades for going above and beyond the call of duty."

Vanellope burst into a fit of giggles. "Doody…" she laughed.

"This calls for celebration, wouldn't you say?" Felix interjected. "Vanellope, we're all heading over to DDR tonight! Wanna come with?"

Vanellope's face practically lit up. "DDR? Wow, absolutely! I always thought you had to be on some sort of waiting list to get in there!"

"Hey," Ralph said as the four of them set off across the atrium, Q-bert bounding along beside them, "you're the president of Sugar Rush, I don't think you'll have any problem."

Vanellope bounced with anticipation, clutching her trophy tight. She was so ecstatic, she didn't notice three of her fellow racers eavesdropping on her from behind a nearby bench.

Taffyta stepped out from hiding, flanked on either side by her two cronies Rancis Fluggerbutter and Candlehead.

"So," Taffyta hissed to her accomplices, brandishing her strawberry lollipop between two gloved fingers, "either of you feel like going dancing?"

"Gosh, that'd be fun!" Candlehead chirped. "But I thought we were just going to hassle Vanellope."

Taffyta rolled her eyes. Candlehead had always been a few sprinkles short of a cupcake.

Rancis played with his hair absent-mindedly. "I dunno, Taffyta," he mumbled. "Vanellope's the president now. Should we really still be making fun of her?"

"Hey, she wants to have a constitutional democracy, she's gonna have to learn to deal with freedom of speech," Taffyta sneered. "And I don't know about you two Junior Mints, but I've got a few unalienable rights to exercise."

Rancis shuffled his feet uncertainly. "But what have you got against Vanellope anyway? She's a good president and a nice person and everything."

Taffyta glared at her friends. "Doesn't it burn your brownies how she wins all those races? Don't you think it's unfair that she can suddenly blink five car lengths ahead of everybody whenever she wants and you can't? Wouldn't you like to level the playing field again, and teach that glitch the meaning of fair play?"

Rancis and Candlehead exchanged contemplative looks.

"Boy," Candlehead mused, "I never really thought of it that way…"

"You've never really thought of anything, Candlehead," Taffyta snapped. "But believe me, it takes a sharp mind like mine to realize these things. And I've had enough of this sugar-frosted factory defect living all high and mighty off that freaky little glitch of hers! Now who's with me?"

Candlehead furrowed her brow in determination and stepped up to Taffyta's left side. The two of them started towards _Dance Dance Revolution_ when they realized Rancis hadn't moved.

Taffyta turned to the spot where he stood. "Well, Fluggerbutter? How about it?"

Rancis looked as if he were contemplating something extremely difficult. He ran a hand through his neatly groomed blond hair. Taffyta swept over to him, stopping inches from his face.

"Don't think I haven't seen the way you look at her, Fluggerbutter," Taffyta said in a hushed voice. "I keep telling you, she's bad news. You want to be seen with a cheater like her? Or with a real honest racer like me?"

Rancis bit his lip, not wanting to look Taffyta in the eye.

"I'm telling you for the last time, Rancis," Taffyta hissed, her lollipop clenched between her gritted teeth. "Make up your mind before I make it up for you."

Still fixing his gaze on the floor of Game Central Station, Rancis gulped and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. Then he shut his eyes and seemed to regain his composure.

"All right, Taffyta," he said, his voice wavering. "If you say so."

"Good job, Fluggerbutter," Taffyta cooed, her voice dripping with insincere syrup, as she pinched his cheek. "Stay sweet."

And the three of them set off across the crowded atrium.


	2. Chapter 2

The floor of _Dance Dance Revolution_ shook under the combined vibrations of dozens of pairs of feet and the whomping impact of a killer bass line. Neon lights blinked everywhere, illuminating the dance floor an electric blue. A huge crowd bumped and jostled in a ring around the stage at the center of the dance floor, the spot that the playable characters usually performed when the game was being played, where five figures gyrated wildly in the nightly DDR dance-off challenge.

Ralph, Vanellope, Felix, and Calhoun were in precise synchronization with Yuni Verse, who led them at the front of the stage. Vanellope twirled and leapt as if she had pure caffeine running through her veins. Ralph shook the floor with every step he took. Felix snapped from one pose to the next in the blink of an eye. Calhoun had her eyes locked shut in deep concentration as she moved. Bright blue and pink arrows rose out of the floor around the four of them and vanished with words of praise: "Great!" "Perfect!" "_MARVELOUS!_"

Taffyta, Rancis, and Candlehead squeezed through the crowd, pushing aside Dig Dug and Chun-Li to get a look at Vanellope on the stage. Taffyta's rage seethed again at the sight of all the praise Vanellope was getting.

The music ended with a pulsating bass note, and the crowd erupted in applause as Vanellope and her friends all took a bow. They staggered back into the crowd, exhausted, as another pounding dance tune started up.

"Wow!" Ralph whooshed, trying to catch his breath. "Calhoun, where'd you learn to move like that?"

Calhoun brushed her hair from her eyes again and smirked. "Well, soldier, when your daily routine consists of dodging and weaving through a swarm of murderous mutant insects with a hankering for human flesh, let's just say agility becomes something of a learned trait."

Felix collapsed into a chair at a nearby table, where Q-bert sat slurping a drink with his long proboscis. "Jiminy jaminy, that was fun!" Felix panted. "I haven't moved that fast since the last time somebody made it to level 36!"

"C'mon, you bunch of Hostess Snowballs, don't tell me you're already pooped out!" Vanellope exclaimed, still a bundle of energy. "Let's go again! I could wipe the floor with ya!"

"Oh sure, Little Miss Glitchy can just do it all, can't she?"

Vanellope turned around. Taffyta, Rancis, and Candlehead stood behind her, looking like they were ready for a fight.

"Hey, Taffyta!" Vanellope said, smiling. "How'd you guys get in here?"

"I told the bouncer I knew the president of _Sugar Rush_," Taffyta grumbled.

Vanellope laughed. "Oh, usin' your connections, eh? You three just made the Christmas card list. Boy, how 'bout those races today, huh? Did you see me almost spin out in Gumball Valley that third time?"

"I wish you had!" Taffyta spat suddenly. "You think you're so hot, just 'cause you got your fancy little superpower there! Well, you may have won the hearts of everyone who plays _Sugar Rush_, but you don't impress me!"

"Or me!" Candlehead chimed in sycophantically.

"Yeah, me neither," Rancis added.

Vanellope's face fell. "What's the matter with you guys? Oh man, don't tell me somebody started screwin' around with your code again!"

"My code is just fine!" Taffyta shot back. "It's yours that needs a good reboot, you licorice-laced loser!"

Ralph sprang out of his chair and thudded to his feet.

"Listen, fun-size, if you've got a problem with Vanellope, you've got a problem with _me_, got that?" he growled, flexing his humongous fingers menacingly.

"Don't sweat it, Ralphie, I can handle this," Vanellope said, patting Ralph on the hip (the highest part of him she could reach). "Look, Taffyta, is this because I got to be the player avatar ten times in a row today? 'Cause if you're gonna get all diaper-baby about something like that, I don't know what to tell ya. I can't control which one of us the players select!"

"Oh yes you can!" Taffyta retorted. "You wouldn't be everybody's favorite if you couldn't do that freakish glitchy thing you do!"

"So, what, you want to be able to glitch too?" Vanellope asked teasingly, her arms folded in front of her chest. "Well, tell you what, I'll get some psychotic chalk-faced racecar driver to unhook _you_ from the game's code and we'll see what happens, okay?"

Taffyta's face reddened with anger.

"I don't want to be a glitch, you filthy little freakazoid!"

Ralph knocked a nearby table aside, smashing it into splinters. "_HEY!_" he bellowed. "You apologize to her right now!"

Vanellope chuckled. "Ralph, I really do appreciate your support, but I know better than to let some bubble-headed bleach blonde booger-brain like this get under my skin."

She turned to head back to her table.

"Who are you calling booger-brain?" Taffyta shouted. "You dirty-haired, pixel-popping, candy-coated _cheater!_"

Vanellope froze in her tracks.

"_What_ did you just call me?" she hissed, her eyes narrowing in fury.

Taffyta glared menacingly at her rival. "You heard me, _Madam President_," she said coolly. "Everyone heard me. Vanellope Von Schweetz is a big, fat _cheater_."

VOOP.

In a blink of azure pixels, Vanellope teleported directly on top of Taffyta and landed a right hook to her jaw. The two of them flailed and kicked in a massive brawl, both screaming incoherent insults at each other. The other patrons of the club backed away, confused by the fracas.

Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun all leapt to Vanellope's defense, pulling the two girls apart. "Hey, hey, _HEY!_" Calhoun shouted above the din. "Knock it off, both of you! That's no way for a politician to behave!"

"Don't you _ever_ call me a cheater again!" Vanellope screamed at Taffyta, her hair falling into her face. "I've never cheated in my life and I never will!"

"Oh, don't make me laugh!" Taffyta snarled, as Rancis and Candlehead helped her back to her feet. "If teleporting halfway up the track during the home stretch isn't cheating, then what _do_ you call it?"

Vanellope mouthed wordlessly, too furious to speak.

"We're sick of always coming in second to you," Rancis added, with his eyes closed in what Vanellope assumed was an attempt at looking superior. "Some president you are! If you really cared about us, you wouldn't be hogging all the glory for yourself!"

"Look, kids," Felix said gingerly, not wanting to incite another brawl, "I don't know much about racing games, but it seems to me like Vanellope's glitching is more like just a special ability. Sort of like a power-up that just never goes away. I wouldn't call it cheating, really…"

"And besides," Calhoun added, shooting a steely glare at Taffyta, "you oughta know that being a playable character isn't about personal glory. Our primary objective is to help the players win, not to brag about how good we are at it."

A small shudder ran up Ralph's spine. Calhoun's words had brought back memories of Turbo, and how he'd corrupted _Sugar Rush_ for the glorification of his insatiable ego. Ralph looked at Taffyta with an uncomfortable feeling of apprehension.

"Well, what about the Random Roster Races, huh?" Taffyta barked. "The ones to determine who the avatars are the next morning? There's nobody playing the game then, and she's _still_ blinkin' all over the track!"

Felix twiddled his ear nervously, anxious to put an end to the conflict as soon as possible. "Well, y'know, gosh, that's…uh, that's kind of a gray area, I guess…"

"Ever since she became playable again, she's made the roster every single day!" Taffyta shouted bitterly. "If she hadn't been glitching, she wouldn't have won any of those races!"

Vanellope struggled as Ralph and Calhoun held her back. "Like Fun Dip I wouldn't have! I'm a great racer, it's in my code!"

"Yeah, then prove it, Hot Tamale! At tonight's race, you can't glitch at all! You just gotta run the course normal like the rest of us! And then we'll see just how good you _really_ are!"

"Listen," Ralph interjected, "Vanellope doesn't need to prove anything to anybody. As long as kids keep playing _Sugar Rush_, it shouldn't matter which racers they select or what they do to get across the finish line. Right, Vanellope? …Vanellope?"

Vanellope scowled at her rival, her eyes burning.

"You're on, Muttonfudge. See you at the finish line."


	3. Chapter 3

**(A/N: Made a few edits to this and Chapter 1, to fix an error I'd made regarding the way power-ups work in Sugar Rush. I'd assumed the A La Mode power-up was something any racer could use, like the Sweet Seeker, but it makes more sense that it'd be exclusive to an ice cream-themed racer like Adorabeezle Winterpop.)**

The air was thick with the hungry roar of over a dozen motors. The stands were packed to the brim with candied spectators. The signal light glowed burning red, taunting the drivers below as it threatened to turn green at any second.

Since being restored to power, Vanellope had signed a new law decreeing that the nightly placement races were to be held on a different track every night, to keep the drivers on their toes. Each terrain presented different challenges, from Gloyd Orangeboar's overgrown pumpkin patch to Snowanna Rainbeau's snow-coated slip-and-slide to Minty Zaki's lush, verdant garden. Tonight, the racers of _Sugar Rush_ were about to inaugurate a brand new track, which had been built shortly after Vanellope took office. This one started outside the Kart Bakery and wound through the valley beneath Diet Cola Mountain. It instilled Vanellope with even more confidence – even if she couldn't glitch in tonight's race, she still knew the terrain extremely well, having lived around here for fifteen years.

Taffyta's sleek pink racer pulled up next to Vanellope's asymmetrical hodge-podge of sprinkles and icing on wheels. From beneath her strawberry helmet, Taffyta shot a look of utmost snobbishness at her ponytailed adversary.

"Good luck, Glitchy McGee!" she called over the rumble of the engines.

"Don't need it, thanks," Vanellope spat back. "You probably want to save it for yourself, y'know, for when I leave you eating my sugar dust!"

Up in the top box, Ralph sat nearly on the edge of his seat. He, Felix, and Calhoun had all come to witness Vanellope's first glitch-free run. All of them were concerned about her safety; as Calhoun had put it, Taffyta had made it clear that she had an axe to grind and didn't care how sharp it got. The rest of the spectators were raring to go too. There wouldn't be too much to see during this run – though the track was complete, the stands were still in the final construction stages, so the Jumbotron hadn't been finished yet. But even without the luxury of watching the racers as they tore around the track, the candy fans of _Sugar Rush_ still loved a good race.

The signal turned yellow. Then green.

Fifteen racers shot over the starting line in a cloud of dust. Within seconds, Vanellope had the lead, flanked on either side by Taffyta and Rancis. Swizzle Malarkey hugged the inside of the track, while Crumbelina DiCaramello and Minty Zaki sought to overtake each other, both their cars weaving back and forth like wheeled fencing foils. Jubileena Bing-Bing kept up the rear, a pleasant smile on her face.

At the first turn, Taffyta managed to pull ahead of Vanellope, but lost her ground just as quickly on the next straightaway. Just ahead, three Sweet Seeker power-ups hovered inches over the track, waiting to be snatched up. Taffyta and Vanellope both aimed for the same one. With gritted teeth, Vanellope sideswiped Taffyta's car and knocked her across the track. The power-up was hers; Rancis and Crumbelina grabbed the other two. Snowanna pulled ahead of Crumbelina and earned herself a Sweet Seeker to the rear fender for her trouble.

Taffyta's wheels crunched into the outside of the track as she strained against the steering wheel, desperate to regain her lost ground. Adorabeezle Winterpop nudged against the back of Gloyd's racer at nearly 90 miles an hour and began to spin out, sending dust billowing across the road. Jubileena blasted through the dust, coughing, then swerved just in time to avoid rear-ending Candlehead. But none of them could catch Taffyta or Vanellope, both of whom had pulled out yards ahead of everyone else.

Tafftya was inches away from Vanellope's passenger side wheels as they approached the south face of the mountain. It would have been so easy for Vanellope to simply blink to the other side of Taffyta's car – she knew it would have disoriented her and allowed her to gain an unquestioned lead. But she also knew she could do this without exploiting her glitchy ability.

Putting the pedal to the floor, Vanellope put on an extra burst of speed. When her back wheel was level with Taffyta's front, she quickly swerved right, then back again. The nudge was enough to send Taffyta spinning out in a blaze of screeching tires. Vanellope didn't have time to look back and admire the results of her fancy driving, though – she had more obstacles to focus on. Shifting into second gear, she hit the gas and blasted further ahead.

Up and over a rise in the track, Vanellope caught air for a second or two before thumping back onto the road. She navigated every turn with ease, nabbing a Power-Up box along the way. A giant icing cannon suddenly materialized on the hood. Feeling cocky, Vanellope spun her vehicle around and shot a glob of icing into the fray, where it splattered on the windshield of Rancis' peanut butter cup kart.

Approaching a fork in the track that led over a gully of Nesquiksand, she opted for the jump instead of the bridge, expanding her lead even more. Those racers foolish enough to try the candy-cane bridge didn't realize it was double-striped until it had already disappeared out from under them. Crumbelina and Gloyd ended up crashing into the Nesquiksand, providing them with a slow and grainy ride out of the gully and back onto the track.

The wind whipped Vanellope's hair around triumphantly as she covered more and more ground. She was a good six or seven car lengths ahead of everyone else, and she hadn't glitched once during the entire race. She laughed uproariously as she sped around the north end of Diet Cola Mountain, her wheels kicking up huge chunks of track. Who could doubt her skills as a racer after this unstoppable run? Cheater, indeed! This was what she was born to do!

And then, unbelievably, Taffyta shot out from her right side and swerved directly in front of her car.

Vanellope had less than a fraction of a second to react. Dangerously close to rear-ending her rival, she jerked the wheel violently to the right. Too far to the right.

With a teeth-chattering crunch, Vanellope's car crashed headlong into the rock candy guardrail. It ricocheted to the other side of the track and struck the other guardrail with such force that it actually flipped forward, throwing Vanellope clear out of her seat. Once, twice, three times, the car rotated wildly through the air as Vanellope hit the track with a painful thud, covering her head with her arms as the other racers blasted by her, swerving wildly out of her way.

Vanellope looked up and barely had time to gasp as her own car plummeted towards her frail little body. She shut her eyes and glitched ten feet forward a split-second before the car smashed upside-down into the dirt, sending huge chunks of its icing shell shattering every which way. One of the rear wheels flew off and narrowly missed her head. The car came to a rest in a cloud of sugar dust, its Pixy Stix exhaust pipes bent at odd angles, the vanilla wafer spoiler dangling precariously from one half-broken pirouette. Sprinkles littered the track like broken glass.

Vanellope's breath came in short, frightened bursts. The sounds of the other racers' cars faded away until she was left lying there on her back in painful terrifying silence. Her whole body felt like she had just been run over by a truck. It hurt to even blink. But it was nothing compared to the gut-wrenching realization that was running through her mind.

_I crashed,_ she thought. _I'm out of the race. I lost._

* * *

"Here they come!" shouted Felix.

The cluster of racecars buzzed toward the finish line like a swarm of angry bees. Taffyta was out in front, the winner by a country mile. As the rest of the racers crossed the finish line at top speed, the crowd erupted in cheers and the totals appeared on the scoreboard. Ralph scanned the newly minted list of the next day's playable characters for Vanellope's name.

1st PLACE – TAFFYTA MUTTONFUDGE

2nd PLACE – SWIZZLE MALARKEY

3rd PLACE – SNOWANNA RAINBEAU

4th PLACE – RANCIS FLUGGERBUTTER

5th PLACE – ADORABEEZLE WINTERPOP

6th PLACE – MINTY ZAKI

7th PLACE – CANDLEHEAD

8th PLACE – JUBILEENA BING-BING

9th PLACE – CRUMBELINA DICARAMELLO

Ralph had to double-check to make sure he hadn't missed any lines. A pit began to form in his stomach as he looked over the crowd of cars and didn't see Vanellope's anywhere. Then the pit dropped out completely as his eyes darted to the bottom half of the list, to the racers who didn't make the cut.

10th PLACE – GLOYD ORANGEBOAR

11th PLACE – CITRUSELLA FLUGPUCKER

12th PLACE – TORVALD BATTERBUTTER

13th PLACE – NOUGETSIA BRUMBLESTAIN

14th PLACE – STICKY WIPPLESNIT

15th PLACE – VANELLOPE VON SCHWEETZ (TIMED OUT)

"Oh, no," Ralph gasped. "Something's not right."

* * *

Calhoun brought her hoverboard down for a landing, Felix gripping her waist for support. Neither of them could believe what they were seeing. There was Vanellope's car, upended on the side of the track, broken pieces of it scattered everywhere. And there, yards away, was Vanellope, staggering limply down the track in a futile effort to reach the finish line. She tripped and fell to the ground, unable to move any further.

"Oh my land!" exclaimed Felix when he saw Vanellope. She was covered in brown sugar, and one of the lenses of her racing goggles was cracked. She struggled to get back up.

Calhoun knelt down beside her. "No, don't move, baby, you're gonna be okay! Felix, bring that hammer of yours over here!"

Felix leapt off the hoverboard and whipped out his golden hammer. With a look of trepidation, he gently tapped Vanellope's forehead with it. Instantly, the dust disappeared from her clothes, and she found that she didn't ache anymore. But the humiliation of her loss still burned in her eyes.

The sound of heavy thudding footsteps growing closer announced Ralph's harried arrival. He carried a worried-looking Sour Bill in his right hand, and he was flanked on either side by tiny candy motorcycles driven by Wynchell and Duncan, the donut policemen. When he saw Vanellope, he gasped.

"Vanellope!" he shouted, lunging to her side as Calhoun picked her up gingerly. "Are you okay?"

"Just peachy," Vanellope said with a weak smile, her voice cracking. "Can't say the same for my car, though…"

Felix brandished his hammer again. "Don't you worry about that, honey!" he said, clearly relieved at her recovery. "Remember, I can fix it!"

"Yeah, I know you can, Felix," Vanellope whispered, closing her eyes as tears began to form in the corners. "I know you can."


	4. Chapter 4

"Well, look on the bright side, Ms. President," Sour Bill droned. "At least this gives you an opportunity to really catch up on matters of national diplomacy."

Vanellope slumped in her throne, thumbing through a huge folder full of some inane new parking law she was supposed to be considering. "Yeah, thanks, Bill," she muttered. "That makes me feel all better."

Litwak's Arcade was open for business again, and Vanellope was stuck in her castle, still stewing over her wipeout while Taffyta raced around the candy-coated countryside. The scene kept playing over and over in her mind, no matter how much she tried to make herself forget about it. If only she hadn't jerked the wheel so hard…if only she'd seen Taffyta a moment sooner…if only she'd paid closer attention…

She threw the folder into Sour Bill's nonexistent arms. "I can't focus on this right now," she groused. "I've gotta go out and clear my head."

"Don't forget," Bill called as Vanellope marched out of the throne room, "you've got that meeting at 2:00 on the issue of drilling for hot fudge in Candy Cane Forest!"

"Yeah, yeah," Vanellope grumbled, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

The tiny candy train rumbled along its sleek electrical track. Vanellope was its only passenger. She had thought about going for a drive around her country to collect her thoughts, but somehow she felt like that would only be masking the real issue. She really wanted to talk to somebody, and she knew exactly who that somebody was.

The train docked, and Vanellope hopped out and ventured into the bright lights of Game Central Station. It was mostly deserted; as the arcade was open, pretty much everybody was hard at work in their individual games. The only sounds came from the faint hum of electrical current surging through the walls and from the incessant yammer of Sonic the Hedgehog's public service announcement kiosk. At the far end of the atrium, the electric blue Surge Protector paced back and forth, keeping an eye out for suspicious activity.

Vanellope glanced at the outlet that led to _Fix-It Felix Jr._ There was no "Now Playing" message flashing on the sign above the entrance.

_Perfect_, Vanellope thought, as she broke into a run.

* * *

"That could've been me."

From her position on the roof of Niceland Apartments, Vanellope could see the _Sugar Rush_ screen clearly. The young girl currently in the driver's seat had just won a race, and Taffyta leapt up and down on the victory screen, proudly clutching a massive golden trophy. The sight of it made Vanellope's skin crawl.

Ralph patted a humongous hand on Vanellope's itty-bitty shoulder in a consoling way. "Aw, I know you're bummed out," he said. "But hey, it's only one day. You'll beat her tonight, I know it."

Vanellope sighed. "That was the worst crash I've ever had, y'know. I coulda won that race if I'd been on top of my game. She cut me off out of nowhere, I thought for sure I'd left her in the dust…"

And then a horrible thought rose unbidden to the forefront of Vanellope's mind.

"It wouldn't have happened if I'd been able to glitch out from behind Taffyta's car," she said, more to herself than to Ralph. "What if she's right? What if I really am only a good racer when I can blink ahead of everyone else?"

Ralph looked stunned.

"Don't ever let yourself think that!" he said. "You've always been a great racer, the best in the game! You've got that souped-up car, you got the highest stats – your picture's on the cabinet, for Miyamoto's sake! You said it yourself, racing's in your code!"

Vanellope stared off at nothing in particular.

"Hey," Ralph continued, "even the best of us don't win all the time. I mean, look at Felix. Sure, he's got that magic hammer and those pies that make him invincible, but that doesn't mean he always beats me! In 30 years, you know how many times I've beaned him with a mound of bricks or dropped a refrigerator on him? But he never takes it personal. It's just part of life."

Vanellope put her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. "That's not really the same, though, is it?" she asked. "I mean, when Felix loses, it's 'cause somebody else is controlling him. But that race…that was just me…"

Her voice trailed off as she glanced at the _Sugar Rush_ screen again. The girl in the driver's seat was selecting her character for the next race. She picked Taffyta again.

"Look, Vanellope, you can't let this haunt you forever. I know you, you're stronger than that. You survived fifteen years of Turbo locking you out of your own game. You could have sat and moped about it, but you didn't – you took action. And now look where you are! President of _Sugar Rush_, and everybody's favorite racer! You're not gonna let Taffyta get inside your head this easily, are you?"

Vanellope turned away from the screen and looked up at her broad-shouldered friend. Ralph smiled down at her hopefully.

A small fire seemed to flare up again inside her gut. She felt the corners of her mouth tense into a smile of her own.

"You're right, Ralphie," she said. "I can't let myself get hung up on this. So what if I lost one race out of a million? Doesn't mean I'm losing my touch! If Taffyta thinks that she's gonna knock me down for good, then she doesn't know President Vanellope Von Schweetz!"

"That's the little street punk I remember!" Ralph beamed. "C'mon, top shelf!"

The two of them bumped fists. Then Vanellope lunged forth and hugged Ralph around the waist.

"Thanks for snappin' me outta my funk, Stinkbrain," she said. "I knew there was a reason I liked ya."

"No problem, ya little fireball, you," Ralph replied, tousling Vanellope's candy-filled hair.

A large shadow fell over them. They looked up to see a kid on the other side of the screen, counting out a handful of quarters.

"Well, looks like I gotta get back to work," Ralph said jovially. "Let's get you back on terra firma, huh?"

Vanellope jumped up and hung on to Ralph's massive shoulders. Ralph leapt nimbly from the roof, grabbing the sill of one of the penthouse windows with one hand and swinging from landing to landing like a highly skilled ape. Touching down on the ground with a thud, he placed Vanellope off to the side, out of view of the action.

"See you at the race tonight?" she asked, grinning.

"Wouldn't miss it for all the cherries in _Pac-Man_," Ralph smirked, flashing a thumbs-up.

The game's start-up music filled the air. A giant speech balloon appeared over Ralph's head. "I'm gonna wreck it!" he bellowed.

Vanellope giggled, then ran off back to the train station, her heart filled with confidence once again.


	5. Chapter 5

A chill hung in the air, as it always did in the northern part of _Sugar Rush_. Soft-Serve Summit was the coldest place in the game, not to mention home to two of the most treacherous tracks – Adorabeezle Winterpop's, which ran up the mountain and behind a massive chocolate syrup waterfall, and Snowanna Rainbeau's, which curved around the base and was lined with huge mounds of flavored ice.

It was Snowanna's track that played home to the placement race tonight, and once again, fifteen racers readied their cars at the starting line, shivering even though their racing jackets were all zipped up to their chins. But Vanellope didn't pay any mind to the cold as she wheeled her kart to the starting line. She wore an expression of utmost enthusiasm.

She knew this wasn't an easy track – the pavement was essentially ice, which made it very hard to steer – but she'd run it before without incident. And with her kart in perfect working order after the tap it received from Felix's hammer the night before, she knew she'd have more than a fighting chance.

Once again, Taffyta pulled up next to Vanellope, looking disgustingly conceited. "Well, well, well," she drawled. "If it isn't Wee Winnie Wipeout. How'd you like your day off?"

"Couldn't have been better," Vanellope replied coolly. "I had the whole day to decide how I'm going to kick your little strawberry patootie tonight. _Without_ glitching. So I guess I'll see you from the winner's circle in about five minutes!"

And without another word, she strapped her racing goggles on and hopped into the driver's seat.

"We'll see about that," Taffyta muttered under her breath with a grin.

Rancis pulled up on Vanellope's right. After a few seconds, Vanellope couldn't help noticing that he was staring at her. He looked like he'd just swallowed his own tongue.

"What do you want, Fluggerbutter?" she asked impatiently.

Rancis' eyes darted back and forth beneath the visor of his helmet. "Um…" he began, his voice wobbling slightly, "I, uh…I – I just wanted to say…uh, good luck, y'know? 'Cause, heh, you're gonna need it!"

Vanellope rolled her eyes. "As far as trying to psych me out goes, I'll give you a C- for effort. Better luck next time."

"Yeah, well, uh, just remember!" he stammered. "Slow and steady wins the race!"

And he slumped low in his seat, as if trying to hide himself.

Vanellope snorted with a confused laugh. "Okay, whatever."

Up in the stands, Ralph shivered with a far-too-small coat over his shoulders, rubbing his sides with his huge hands in an effort to keep warm. Felix and Calhoun were cuddled up next to him under a tiny blanket, trying to siphon what little warmth they could from each other's bodies. "Man," Ralph said through chattering teeth, "what I wouldn't give for a change of clothes sometimes…"

The announcer's voice boomed over the loudspeaker. "Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!"

The air was rent with the explosive sound of fifteen cars starting up simultaneously. Vanellope stared down the signal light as if daring it to blink. This time, she could feel something – she knew she was going to be unstoppable.

Red, yellow, green. In a flash, the racers were off, many of them already sliding on the frozen track. But Vanellope had an advantage here. Her soft and squishy Gummi Worm tires offered much better traction on the slick, smooth road than most karts did. Indeed, Taffyta's hard candy wheels caused her to spin out and bounce off the guardrail on the very first turn.

"Turn _into_ the skid, Muttonfudge!" Vanellope taunted. Laughing triumphantly, she left her rival in the powder and hit the gas hard, blazing into the lead.

A long icy valley stretched ahead, with huge multicolor shaved ice snowballs rolling back and forth across the track. Swizzle Malarkey clipped one of them and slid across the road, crashing into Minty Zaki. Candlehead swerved from side to side, her ice cream wheels struggling to grip the road. But Vanellope blasted on through at top speed, adroitly avoiding every snowball, including the really big one at the end. She kept her peripheral vision in check – no sign of Taffyta anywhere around her. This was shaping up to be a much better run than last night.

Rapidly approaching a hairpin turn that usually decimated most racers, Vanellope didn't even bat an eye. She gently applied the brake.

Nothing happened.

The bottom seemed to drop out of Vanellope's stomach. She pounded her boot on the brake pedal, but her car steadfastly refused to slow down. In fact, it seemed to be gaining speed. She was topping 100 miles an hour and on a direct collision course with the guardrail.

With barely any time to react, Vanellope threw her hands up over her face and glitched, not even thinking of a destination. She teleported off the track, to the other side of the guardrail, and her momentum carried her skimming over the snow in a spray of powder. She lowered her arms and screamed.

KER-SPLASH.

Her car landed in a hot chocolate spring. For the second time in two nights, Vanellope flew out of the driver's seat, plunging into the chocolate. She splashed to the surface, sputtering and gasping, as her car came to rest half-submerged in the steaming spring. Its back wheels were still spinning.

Holding on to a marshmallow as a floatation device, Vanellope wiped the chocolate off her goggles and saw the rest of her fellow racers go zooming by on the track, most of them bouncing off the guardrail. Taffyta was gaining ground again. They turned the corner around a giant mound of shaved ice and disappeared.

Vanellope punched the surface of the chocolate in disgust. Her face was boiling – and it wasn't just the hot chocolate's fault.

* * *

"Man, what happened out there?"

Ralph lifted the car out of the chocolate with one hand, as effortlessly as if it were a toy. It dripped huge brown stains in the snow. Vanellope was draped in Felix and Calhoun's blanket, still sopping wet. She looked furious with herself.

"I don't fudge-flippin' know! I tried to hit the brakes, and I got bupkus! Man, you don't know how badly this cheeses me off…"

Ralph turned the car over in his hands. "Well, hey, this little dangly thing shouldn't be dangling like this, should it?"

Vanellope turned to look. A long black licorice Twizzler hung down from the car's undercarriage, dripping tiny globules of green fruit filling.

"That's my brake line!" Vanellope squeaked incredulously. "It must have come loose!"

Felix yanked his hammer out of his belt. "Not to worry, I can –"

"Wait!"

Vanellope held Felix's arm still before he could swing the hammer. She looked more closely at the brake line, turning it over in her fingers. It didn't appear to have just fallen out – the edge looked all worn and battered, as if it had broken.

"That looks like it was rotted out," she muttered. "But that's impossible – Felix, you just fixed my whole car last night, it should have been as good as when Ralph and I first made it. There's no way the brake line could have rotted so quickly!"

"Maybe you went over a bump and knocked it loose?" Felix suggested. "And it dragged on the ground and got all chewed up on that end?"

Vanellope shook her head. "Not on this track, it's all perfectly smooth ice. And I didn't drive over any rough terrain between last night and tonight…"

Calhoun wrinkled her nose. "Either way you slice it, this sure doesn't look like an accident," she mused. "I don't know about you three popsicles, but I smell something foul, and it ain't comin' from this yellow snow."

"I should hope not," Vanellope replied, dropping the brake line. "It's lemon."

"But gee whillikers," Felix said in a hushed tone, "who'd want to knock you out of the race?"

Vanellope crossed her arms. "Gee, who d'ya think? I betcha anything Taffyta's behind this!"

Ralph's brow furrowed deeply. He dropped the car into the snow, his hands balling into fists.

"Why, that little brat!" he growled. "Thinks she can get away with tryin' to crash you into a guardrail? I'm gonna pound that kart of hers into strawberry-scented dust!" And without warning, he whirled around and punched a candy cane tree so hard that it cracked cleanly in two, raining pink and blue shaved ice snow down on all their heads.

"Awesome!" Vanellope shouted, grinning mischievously as she shook the snow out of her hair.

"Whoa, cool your jets there, mountain man," Calhoun snapped. "A soldier who charges into battle without doing the proper reconnaissance first is just asking for a gut full of hot plasma. What evidence do we have that Taffyta's the one who did this?"

Ralph unclenched his fists, looking sheepish. "Well, uh, none, I guess…"

"Well then," Vanellope said, tightening her blanket and crunching through the snow back to the track, "let's all of us go 'n find some, shall we?"


	6. Chapter 6

By the time the four of them got back to the starting line, everyone else had already left, but the totals still displayed on the board. Much to Vanellope's dismay, Taffyta had pulled out another first-place victory, beating Snowanna by just three-tenths of a second. And of course, Vanellope herself had been disqualified.

Vanellope had requested that Felix not repair her car – she wanted to keep her broken brake line intact as evidence. With no working brakes, Ralph had to sit on the back of Vanellope's car and propel it back to Candy Hollow with his hands. Calhoun and Felix followed close behind on the hoverboard. All the way, Vanellope sat seething in the driver's seat. She'd always known that Taffyta was snobbish, but she never dreamed she'd stoop to sabotage.

But Vanellope's feelings of fury were only exacerbated when she and her friends arrived in the town square. All the other racers had gathered around the chocolate fountain in the center, where Taffyta stood, waving and smiling to the crowd. A huge taffy banner hung between the buildings, emblazoned with words written in bright pink and green icing:

HELP SUGAR RUSH STAY SWEET!  
VOTE TAFFYTA MUTTONFUDGE FOR PRESIDENT

"Oh, for the love of Bosco," Vanellope fumed, leaping out of the driver's seat.

Flanked by Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun, she stormed up to the fountain. "Hey, Muttonfudge!" she snapped. "What the heck is all this?"

Taffyta grinned at her fellow racers. "See what I mean, folks? Can we really put our trust in a president who can't even read?"

The other racers burst into laughter.

Ralph clenched his fists again. "Hey, Vanellope's been a great president!" he shouted. "She's been fair and balanced, and listens to everybody's concerns! You've all been happy with her administration, don't deny it!"

"Hate to break it to you, King Kong, but it looks like her approval rating's gone down in the last few days," Taffyta continued, "thanks to certain recent events. Seems that absolutely _tragic_ crash she had last night had sort of a negative effect on her. Can't seem to keep her mind on her work anymore, can she?"

Vanellope leapt up onto the wafer edge of the fountain and looked Taffyta in the eyes. "What do you mean, I can't keep my mind on my work?"

Taffyta gave a little chuckle that made Vanellope fight the urge to punch her in the nose. "Well, Von Schweetz, me and the other racers couldn't help noticing how badly you blew tonight's race. First of all, I distinctly remember you saying to me at the starting line that you wouldn't use your little glitchy power during that run."

"That's right," Swizzle Malarkey piped up from the back of the crowd, "I heard it too!" Several other racers nodded in assent.

"And yet, when you hit that hairpin turn, we all _clearly_ saw you disappear in a cloud of pixels! Some promise keeper you are!" Taffyta smirked, as Vanellope shook with rage.

"And on top of _that_," Candlehead shouted from the crowd, standing next to Rancis, "not only did you glitch, you didn't even glitch _right!_ You went clean off the track, you spaz! What good is having a cheat code if you're not even smart enough to use it the right way? A-_duhhh!_"

"_I didn't cheat!_" Vanellope protested, pulling the tattered Twizzler out of the pocket of her hoodie. "But somebody _else_ did! Look what happened to my brake line! Somebody broke it! And don't think I don't know who it was!" she concluded, glaring daggers at Taffyta.

Taffyta looked closely at the licorice rope swinging from Vanellope's hand. "What, you think _I_ did this?" she asked, taking the Twizzler and laughing. "That's ridiculous! I haven't been anywhere near that half-baked cupcake you call a kart!"

"Can anybody prove that?" Vanellope growled.

Minty Zaki stepped to the front of the crowd. "As a matter of fact, we can! Taffyta spent the whole evening before the race doing test runs with me and Crumbelina! But hey, nice to know how quick you are to assume every little engine failure you have is some kind of sabotage!"

Vanellope ran a hand through her hair in frustration. "Well, if Taffyta didn't cut my brakes, who did?"

Taffyta squinted at the Twizzler. "See these bite marks on the end, genius? Looks to me like you got ambushed by a candy corn rat – you know how they love licorice."

"That's true!" Gloyd Orangeboar said. "They live all around my pumpkin patch and I keep having to shoo them out of my garage! They're always trying to nibble on my car!"

"So let's recap here," Taffyta said to the crowd. "We're currently living under the administration of a president who doesn't keep her promises, can't even cheat right, doesn't hesitate to accuse the innocent of wrongdoing, and has no idea how to keep her car properly maintained! If we can't trust her on the racetrack, how are we supposed to trust her in the castle?"

A loud roar of agreement went up from the crowd. Vanellope looked around, thunderstruck, at all the jeering faces before her. She couldn't believe that they'd turn on her so quickly like this.

"It's not true!" she squeaked, utterly lost for words. "I mean…you…I…it…"

"Nice articulate rebuttal, Your Highness," Taffyta snarked, shoving the severed Twizzler back into Vanellope's hands with such force that Vanellope lost her balance and splashed backwards into the chocolate fountain. The other racers laughed harder than ever as Vanellope stood up, covered from head to toe in chocolate syrup.

Felix and Calhoun leapt backwards as Ralph lunged into the crowd, bellowing at the top of his lungs. The racers shrieked and ran for cover while Ralph blindly pounded the pavement with his heavy fists, cracking the Necco wafer cobblestones into powder. "_You leave her alone!_" he roared. "_She never did anything to anybody!_"

Taffyta and her friends all stampeded away down the main street. "Don't let Von Schweetz's brainless hired goons scare you, folks!" she called above the melee. "Make the right choice when you go to the polls! Vote Muttonfudge!"

Vanellope climbed out of the fountain, wiping the chocolate from her face. Ralph was breathing heavily, still scowling at the racers as they disappeared into town. Felix and Calhoun knelt down beside Vanellope, looking concerned.

"You all right, kiddo?" Calhoun asked gently, as Felix handed her a cloth from his back pocket.

Vanellope's heart sunk as she toweled more chocolate off herself. "What a bunch of total jerkbutts!" she griped. "I can't believe they bought that load of garbage Taffyta fed to 'em!"

"Oh, she's just a lying little so-and-so," Felix muttered. "Trying to spread rumors about you! But you know the truth, and so do we! We'll help you get re-elected, no matter what!"

Vanellope smiled weakly. "You mean it?"

"Of course we mean it!" Ralph boomed. "With us as your campaign team, Taffyta doesn't stand a chance against you! Everybody loves an adorable winner!"

"Yeah," Vanellope mumbled, running Felix's cloth through her hair. "I just have to start winning again first…"


	7. Chapter 7

A meeting was held in Candy Hollow in the hours before Litwak's opened that day, and it was decided that the election would be conducted on Friday morning. Taffyta wanted it to happen immediately, but Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun had argued to give Vanellope the rest of the week to campaign. (The motion was nearly vetoed, but Ralph needed only to discreetly flex his powerful arms and pound his fist into his palm to convince any contrary voters.) This gave her three days to sway the residents of _Sugar Rush_ back to her side.

Unfortunately, this was much easier said than done. Taffyta's words had filled the other racers with a kind of mob-like passion, and nearly everyone in _Sugar Rush_ seemed to be convinced that her slights against Vanellope's character were valid. Worse still, Vanellope had failed to make the roster of playable characters for the second day in a row, meaning she had no chances to prove herself on the track.

"And even if I did," she grumbled, "I'm sure Taffyta would find some way to make me look like an idiot. There's no way I'm gonna let her win this election!"

On the plus side, Vanellope's time off from racing allowed her to devote a great deal of energy towards her re-election campaign. Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun were all more than willing to pitch in, and in the brief spare time they had between games that day, they poured all their best efforts into making sure Vanellope kept her office. Ralph tried to compete with Taffyta's fancy taffy bunting with a campaign poster of his own – a huge white piece of paper that read "VAN 4 PREZ". ("I write big," he explained sheepishly, "and I ran out of room.") Felix enlisted the help of the Nicelanders to spearhead a bake sale featuring Mary's famous pastries, including a massive cake in the shape of Vanellope's kart.

Calhoun, meanwhile, put her troops to work as muckraking espionage agents, commanding them to seek out as much incriminating information on Taffyta as they could find. ("If that rotten little strawberry seed wants to play hardball, then I say let her step up to the mound and we'll hit a line drive right back!") The entire _Hero's Duty_ squadron spent the evening combing Game Central Station, interrogating as many characters as they could about Taffyta. But since the _Sugar Rush_ characters had been completely cut off from the rest of the arcade until just a month ago (during his fifteen-year masquerade as King Candy, Turbo had made it a point to disengage the train, so nobody could come into the game and question his presence there), the reconnaissance mission turned up mostly empty.

"All anybody knows is that she spends a lot of time hanging out with this one kid who wears a peanut butter cup and another who wears a birthday candle," Markowski reported back to Calhoun.

"Fluggerbutter and Candlehead," Calhoun muttered. "All right, then we know who we have to pump for info. I want a stealth team on 24-hour watch in Candy Hollow between now and the election. Anything we find that can turn Muttonfudge's sweet campaign sour, I want it delivered to me in flashing neon letters!"

* * *

Vanellope wasn't having much luck getting her voice heard. A handful of racers still supported her – Adorabeezle Winterpop refused to believe what Taffyta was saying, and Jubileena Bing-Bing had offered her apologies for everyone else's sorry behavior and assured Vanellope that she could count on her vote – but most everyone else had already fallen under Taffyta's smooth-talking influence. In every qualifying race, Vanellope became the target of jeers and insults from her fellow competitors, not to mention an uncountable number of Sweet Seekers aimed at her rear bumper. Sticky Wipplesnit and Torvald Batterbutter actually sacrificed their second- and third-place positions during Wednesday night's race just so they could box in Vanellope against the guardrail and ensure she came in lower than ninth.

"What's the matter with these dummies?" she griped after losing Thursday night's race, thanks to a well-timed sideswipe from Swizzle Malarkey that had sent her careening off the track and into Lake Lemonade. "How could they ignore all the good stuff I've done for 'em over the past month? Sheesh, it's like they've got the memory span of a Goldfish cracker."

"Don't you worry," Ralph growled, clenching his fists. "I'll make sure these kids learn not to push you around ever again!"

"Thanks for stickin' up for me, Ralphie," Vanellope said sincerely, "but something tells me I'll have a better chance of getting re-elected if my campaign manager doesn't go around smashing my constituents' cars."

Ralph lowered his fists and chuckled. "Good point."

"Trust me," she said with a smile, "I've endured much worse than this. And once Calhoun's goons get some dirt on Taffyta, everyone'll know I was telling the truth."

* * *

The polls were to open early on Friday morning, and they'd be closing just before Litwak's opened for business. Vanellope still had time after her loss in the Thursday night race to get a few more voters on her side, and fortunately, her bake sale was all ready to go. Felix, Ralph, and a parade of Nicelanders all gathered in the Candy Hollow town square, with a dozen booths full of Mary's best and most delicious baked goods. At the largest booth, where Vanellope and Sour Bill stood, the car-shaped cake drew everyone's eye, its sugar-dusted frosting glistening in the sunlight.

Calhoun and her men were there too. The election was right down to the wire now, and the reconnaissance team still hadn't turned up much inside information on Taffyta. While two soldiers covertly followed Rancis and Candlehead around _Sugar Rush_, the rest of them were stationed at vantage points around the town square, acting as Vanellope's secret service and ensuring that nothing went wrong.

"Come on, folks!" Vanellope barked from her booth. "Enjoy a delicious pastry, compliments of President Vanellope Von Schweetz! The sweetest you'll find in all of _Sugar Rush_!"

A small crowd of racers and candy-headed spectators had begun to gather in the town square. Swizzle wandered over to Gene's table and picked up a cupcake, eyeing it as if he expected it to sprout legs and attack him.

"What is this, 8-bit pastry?" he remarked, unimpressed. "What's the sell-by date on this stuff, 1985?"

"Don't judge it 'til you try it, kid," Gene responded. "They're the best in the whole arcade! And every one's a vote for Vanellope!"

"So you're trying to bribe me?" Swizzle scoffed, chucking the cupcake over his shoulder. It landed in the chocolate fountain with a plunk. "Some democracy this is."

Vanellope watched with narrowed eyes as Swizzle walked away. "Well, fudge," she grumbled. "I'm not gonna sway any of these losers if they won't even eat the dang cupcakes."

"Ix-nay on the osers-lay, Ms. President," Sour Bill mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

Jubileena and Adorabeezle approached Vanellope's table. "Wow!" Jubileena said in awe. "What a cool cake! It looks just like your car! I feel like I could hop in and drive it away!"

Vanellope smiled her best. "Well, you can do the next best thing – eat it!" She produced a small serving knife and two plates, cutting off slices for both girls. "Here ya go! Don't forget to vote Von Schweetz!"

"Mm!" Adorabeezle said through a mouthful of cake. "This is really good!" Turning to the rest of the crowd, she called "Hey everybody! You gotta try this!"

More curious spectators began to crowd around Vanellope's table. Others began sampling cookies and pies from the other booths.

"That's right, gather 'round, folks!" Felix said cheerfully, doling out slices of pie. "There's plenty for everyone! That's a Team Von Schweetz promise!"

Ralph sidled over to Vanellope's table. "Way to go, Madam President! I think Taffyta can kiss that throne room goodbye!"

"You better believe it, buddy!" Vanellope whispered, bumping Ralph's fist as she handed out another plate of cake.

Calhoun smiled confidently, then spoke into her wrist communicator. "Mama Bird to Eagle One. Status report, over."

From his vantage point in the bell tower atop Town Hall, Markowski responded into his own communicator. He could see the entire town square clearly. "Eagle One to Mama Bird. All clear up here. Nothing unusual to report. Everything A-okay. Over."

Markowski flipped the visor of his helmet up to get a better look at the action below. A long line was beginning to form at Vanellope's table. He felt his stomach grumble. He could use a bite to eat after a long night of lookout duty, and an even longer day of fighting those horrible traumatizing Cy-Bugs…

_Every day, it's climb the tower, fight more bugs…climb the tower, fight more bugs…_

The haunting memories began to swim before his eyes, but he shook his head to rid himself of them. He couldn't let himself get distracted now. He had more important things to focus on…

And then he heard something that made every muscle in his body go tense.

There, on the candy cane railing before him, was a tiny brown insect, skittering along on its six legs and buzzing its wings. It looked up at Markowski. Their eyes met.

"_BUG!"_

His heart racing, Markowski acted on the first frightened impulse he had. Grabbing his plasma cannon, he fired blindly at the railing. In his distressed state, he missed; the plasma blast hit the fountain in the center of the square, and it exploded in a shower of chocolate syrup, soaking everyone around it. The stunned townspeople shouted in confusion, many of them dropping their pastries.

Screaming at the top of his lungs, Markowski kept firing, his mind running away with him. Terrified racers and Nicelanders dove for cover as plasma flew everywhere, blasting holes in the buildings and obliterating tables in a spray of candy and crumbs.

Ralph grabbed Vanellope and sheltered her from the melee with his massive arms. Calhoun ducked beneath an alcove in a nearby building and bellowed into her communicator. "_Eagle One! Eagle One! Hold your fire! Repeat, HOLD YOUR FIRE! What the holy hotcakes do you think you're doing?"_

Markowski didn't hear her. He emptied the last of his clip in a vain attempt to slaughter the helpless bug, which was now nowhere to be seen. The final plasma shot hit Vanellope's table, blasting the kart cake into bits and splattering the cowering _Sugar Rush_ residents with icing and sprinkles.

Trembling, Ralph and Vanellope stood up, staring in disbelief at the destruction that lay before them. Miraculously, nobody had been hurt, but the town square was in ruins. Necco wafer dust swirled everywhere as frightened racers and spectators got to their feet, wiping frosting and crumbs off of themselves.

"So, _this_ is who you people are voting for?"

Vanellope's heart skipped a beat as she saw Taffyta step out from the cloud of dust, standing right where the chocolate fountain had stood mere seconds earlier. Her eyes blazed with fury.

"This is the kind of protection she offers us?" Taffyta continued, her voice building in intensity. "She invites everyone out for a pleasant day of pastries and sunshine, and her secret service mooks go crazy and nearly kill everyone? We're not going to stand for this insanity, are we?"

A loud rumble of agreement rippled across the shaken residents of _Sugar Rush_.

"Come on!" Taffyta bellowed. "Everyone come to my garage, I'll get you all cleaned up! And I've got enough lollipops in my garden for everybody – _locally-grown_ lollipops, not imported from some other game!"

"Well, I never!" Mary blustered.

The few racers who still had intact pastries threw them on the ground in disgust as they followed Taffyta out of the town square. Jubileena and Adorabeezle both glared at Vanellope as they chucked their plates aside and joined Taffyta's throng. As Taffyta passed Vanellope's broken table, she hissed under her breath, just barely loud enough for Vanellope to hear:

"_Game over, glitch."_

Vanellope's eyes burned as she watched the crowd empty out of the square. She looked around at the shattered tables, the mounds of icing lining the ground and the walls, the smoking holes in the sides of the buildings…

"Hey, wait!" Felix called after the crowd. "Don't go away! I mean, sure, it looks like a mess, but I can…I can fix it…"

It was no use. Everyone had left.

Ralph put a huge hand on Vanellope's shoulder. "Hey, it's okay…"

"No, it isn't," Vanellope gulped.

The men of Calhoun's squadron emerged from their hiding places, gawking aghast at the damage before them. Markowski stumbled out the front door of the town hall, looking haggard and confused. He held his plasma cannon limply at his side, and his helmet was off.

Calhoun strode swiftly up to Markowski and slapped him in the face. "What's your major malfunction, maggot?" she snarled. "You wanna explain to me why you just served up three courses of Doomsday out here?"

Markowski began to speak, but the words caught in his throat as he spotted the brown bug on the ground, still skittering away as if nothing had happened. He shrieked, pointing at the innocuous insect. "That thing tried to kill me! It could have sucked my brains out through my eye sockets!"

Calhoun stamped her boot down on the bug, crunching it; it regenerated instantly and scrambled away under an upturned table. "It's just a harmless choc-roach, you cross-eyed sack of doorknobs!" she bellowed, an inch away from Markowski's face. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't discharge you from your position and string you up from the tower by your –"

Before she could continue, Private Kohut ran into the town square, clutching a racer by the arm. "Sergeant!" he shouted with a hasty salute. "We found out who disengaged the target's brake line the other night."

He held up the child dangling helplessly from his fist. It was Rancis.

Vanellope's jaw dropped. "_You!_" she shrieked. "I should have known! Of course Taffyta didn't cut my brakes herself, she had one of her stooges do it for her! She _was_ cheating!"

Kohut threw Rancis to the ground. He got to his knees and gulped, too afraid to look Vanellope in the eye. "No," he said, his voice cracking. "Taffyta didn't put me up to it…I did it all on my own."

Vanellope couldn't believe her ears.

"What?" she gasped.

"It's true," Kohut continued. "We interrogated him for an hour, but he maintains that he acted independently. I hate to say it, but it looks like Muttonfudge is 100% in the clear."

Vanellope looked like she'd been hit in the face. This was too much on top of everything else.

"So…so _you_ wanted me out of the race on Tuesday night?" she choked.

Rancis kept his eyes fixed on the ground. "That's right," he mumbled. "Taffyta and Candlehead talked a lot about what a lousy cheater you are…but I was the only one who did anything about it. I thought…" He hesitated for a second. "I thought if I made it look like an accident, I could get away with it…"

"I'm gonna make _you_ look like an accident, prissy boy!" Ralph growled, lunging forward with his fists raised.

Vanellope put out a hand, and Ralph stopped in his tracks. "Let me handle this," she said quietly.

She looked down at Rancis, who still refused to meet her eyes. "I know it won't do any good," she began weakly, "since Taffyta's going to win the election in a few hours anyway and she'll just pardon you as soon as she gets into office. But until then, Rancis Fluggerbutter, you're to spend the rest of the night in prison. Soldiers, take him to the police station." She gulped again. "Officers Wynchell and Duncan will keep an eye on him."

And as Calhoun's men dragged Rancis away, Vanellope turned back around to face what few friends she still had left. Ralph, Felix, Sour Bill, and the Nicelanders all looked forlornly at her, knowing they'd done all they could to help. Calhoun knelt down by Vanellope's side.

"I'm sorry, kiddo," she said softly. "It was my fault. Made a rookie mistake. Should have known better than to put a loose cannon like Markowski on guard duty."

Vanellope tried to make herself laugh at the word "duty". But as she wiped her nose and blinked back the tears that were welling up in her eyes, nothing seemed very funny at the moment.


	8. Chapter 8

By 8:00 that morning, the election results were in, and Vanellope's worst fears were confirmed – Taffyta had won in a landslide. The only vote Vanellope had received was the one she cast herself.

"Sorry, Vanellope," Jubileena had said after the outcome was announced. "But you gotta admit, your campaign team was a bunch of psychos. And not just the guy who shot up the town square, either."

"Yeah," Adorabeezle added. "That Wreck-It Ralph guy you hang out with, the one who's always roaring and threatening to smash us? I think he's a few Good 'N Plentys short of a full box, if you know what I mean."

Vanellope wanted to object loudly to this slight against her best friend, but she couldn't bring herself to actually speak to her fellow racers. She was too angry at all of them. It wasn't about the election – heck, it didn't make a difference to her one way or another whether she got to live in the castle or in a gingerbread bungalow in Candy Hollow, just so long as she could still race alongside her friends. But now she had no friends left in _Sugar Rush_. Everybody thought she was a liar and a cheat with a hulking brainless ape for a bodyguard.

As Vanellope had predicted, the first thing Taffyta had done as president was pardon Rancis and release him from jail. His cowardly act of sabotage still stung Vanellope's heart every time she thought about it. She knew Taffyta was a jerk, and Candlehead was a little too dim to know any better, but she'd always had faith in Rancis. Faith that he could get himself away from that unproductive clique and make something better of himself. But as much as she hated to admit it, he was really no better than the rest of them. He was just a self-centered pretty boy who didn't care about anybody other than himself.

Rancis stood beneath the balcony of the castle with the other racers, applauding along with them as Taffyta appeared at the door to give her inauguration speech with a thoroughly uninterested Sour Bill at her side.

"Friends, racers, candy men," Taffyta began, "thank you for making the right choice! As president of Sugar Rush, I promise to uphold the sweet beliefs and principles on which our hallowed game was programmed…"

Rancis turned to look at Vanellope as she sadly slunk away from the crowd. Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun all accompanied her out of the castle grounds, each one of them with a look of dejection on their faces. Vanellope turned to glance at the castle one last time, and her eyes met Rancis' for a split-second.

She looked away in a hurry.

* * *

"So have you found a new place to live?" Felix asked.

The four of them stood at the top of the rainbow-striped road that led back to Game Central Station. Litwak's Arcade would be opening in less than half an hour.

Vanellope sighed. "I don't know. I guess I can always go back to Diet Cola Mountain. It's nothing glamorous, but it's got all those ramps and stuff for me to practice on. I know it won't be easy now that everybody's smooching Taffyta's butt all the time and runnin' me off the track left and right, but one of these days, I'll make the roster again."

Ralph rubbed his forearm uneasily. He couldn't help feeling partly responsible for Vanellope's loss – he'd been her campaign manager, and he felt like he could have done a better job.

"Well," he said, "if you ever get lonely, you know that there's always a room waiting for you at Niceland Apartments. Or you could live with Q-bert and me… I know the brick pile isn't exactly cozy, but we can always build you your own little house."

Vanellope gave Ralph a half-hearted smile.

Ralph knelt down to Vanellope's eye level. "Look, I'm sorry you didn't win the election, Vanellope. I did my best to help you out. We all did. I mean, maybe if I'd made you a better poster, or…or if I hadn't scared the other racers so much. I should have tried harder to – "

"Hey, Ralphie," she interjected. "Don't sweat it. You were more than just a campaign manager. Throughout this whole thing, you've been the guy to pick me up when I was flat down on my face. The fact that you were there for me at all… that's more important than winning any dumb ol' election."

She jumped forward and hugged Ralph around his huge shoulders.

"Win or lose, you'll always be my hero, Stinkbrain."

Felix began to sob into his work cloth. Calhoun put her arm around him and held him tight. "It's okay, Sugarcakes, let it out," she said with conviction, as her weepy husband blew his nose loudly.

Ralph got to his feet, his eyes a little redder than before. "So I guess it's back to the mountain for you, huh?"

"For now," Vanellope said, walking back to her lopsided candy car. "But maybe I'll look for a place in Candy Hollow. Anywhere that's surrounded by road is good enough for me." She hopped into the driver's seat. "See you guys at the race tonight."

And with a wave, she started the engine and rolled away back down the road towards the sugar-frosted wilderness below.

Ralph smiled as he watched his friend's car descend towards the chocolate-covered trees, then turned around with Felix and Calhoun and trudged back towards the train.

* * *

Vanellope drove aimlessly around _Sugar Rush_ for a while, taking in the sights. Candy Cane Forest, where she'd first met Ralph…the chocolate junkyard, where she'd built her first ride, the pedal-powered Likkity Split…the Kart Bakery, where she and Ralph had built her trusty kart, which had never failed her before her crash on Monday night…

She left the factory grounds and wound her way around the track that circled Diet Cola Mountain. When she came to the hidden entrance between the two sugar-free lollipops, she stopped.

Hopping out of her car, she felt oddly comfortable returning to this part of the game. After all, she'd lived here for longer than she'd lived in the castle. In a weird way, this place still felt more like home to her. And it was where Ralph had taught her how to drive. There was sentimental value in the place, really.

She warped through the rock candy wall, blinking her eyes. It was exactly as she'd remembered it – well, almost exactly, anyway. Crossing the finish line and resetting the game's code had erased any evidence of anyone ever having lived here, let alone the massive eruption that had wiped out the murderous swarm of Cy-Bugs and killed Turbo once and for all. The crude practice track that Ralph had built with his bare hands was here no more, and the imposing Mentos stalactites were once again in one piece.

Vanellope wandered over to the empty alcove where she had once made her own little bed out of sponge cake and candy wrappers. _Just like a little homeless lady,_ she recalled. She had been an outcast then, shunned by the other drivers and living without a friend in the world.

_Well,_ she thought to herself, _looks like I'm an outcast all over again. But at least this time, I've got Ralph. I don't have to do this alone anymore._

She looked wistfully out at the molten cola lake in the center of the mountain. It had been the last thing she saw before going to sleep every night for fifteen long years. The memories came flooding back as she surveyed the unfinished bonus track, the bubbles popping on the surface of the cola, the tire treads that wound around the lake…

_Wait a minute._

Vanellope leapt down out of the alcove, puzzled at what she was seeing. If the game reset itself and erased everything she'd done while she lived here, every impact she and Ralph had ever made on the inside of the mountain, then why were the tire treads from her first driving lesson still here?

She looked closely at the tracks in the gritty floor. Her eyes widened.

"Sweet mother of monkey milk," she gasped, putting a hand to her forehead. "I _knew_ it!"


	9. Chapter 9

"Excuse me, Mr. Litwak?"

The mustachioed owner of the arcade turned around at the mention of his name, dropping the broom he'd been using to sweep a discarded Subway cup out from behind the _Fatal Assault_ console. It was well into Friday afternoon, one of his busiest periods during the summer, and the arcade was packed with kids. One of his regular customers, a moppet-faced girl with glasses and mousy brown hair, stood beside him.

"Oh, hey there, sport-o", Mr. Litwak said jovially as he clambered to his feet. "What can I do for you?"

The girl pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "I just had a question," she mumbled. "Is there any way for you to, like, pick more characters in _Sugar Rush_? Besides the nine that come up on the selection screen, I mean."

Mr. Litwak scratched his head. "Mm, y'know, I don't think so," he muttered. "Why, was there an avatar you wanted that didn't come up?"

"Well, I guess it's not that big a deal," she replied, shifting from one foot to the other, "but I just like Vanellope Von Schweetz best, that's all. She hasn't been in the lineup for the last couple of days."

"Yeah, sorry, honey," Litwak said, glancing over at the _Sugar Rush_ console, "but the game picks a new roster every day totally at random. Luck of the draw, I guess – nothing anybody can do about it, really."

The girl rolled her eyes. "That figures."

Mr. Litwak adjusted his glasses. "Funny you should mention Vanellope," he continued. "Do you know, I've had that game for fifteen years, and in all that time, she _never_ started coming up in the roster until just about a month ago? Weirdest thing! Must have been some kind of glitch in the system or something. But you're not the only one who likes her best. I get kids all the time telling me how they love to play as her. It's made _Sugar Rush_ more popular than ever."

"Yeah," the girl said with a shrug, "'cause how many other racing games let you teleport around the track? Ah well, thanks anyway, Mr. Litwak."

"No problem, kiddo," Litwak said as he sunk back to his knees and picked up the broom again. "Have fun!"

The girl turned back towards _Sugar Rush_, jingling her pocket full of quarters. Before she could sit back down, though, two older boys dashed over and claimed both driver's seats.

"Buzz off, four-eyes!" one of them teased. "We were here first!"

"You were not!" she insisted, her brow furrowing.

The other boy stuck his tongue out at her. "Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it?"

Putting her hands in her pockets, the girl sulked over to _Hero's Duty_. Maybe blasting a couple of Cy-Bugs would make her feel better.

"Hey," the first boy said as he scanned the racer selection screen. "Where's that little teleporting girl?"

* * *

Taffyta leaned against her car, savoring her strawberry-flavored lollipop. Life was good.

The arcade had just closed, and the racers were checking over their cars as they prepared for the Random Roster Race. Excited candy spectators began to fill the stands, chattering among themselves. Taffyta was taking a few private moments at the edge of the track to bask in the glory of her accomplishments. She had won five gold trophies during the day. Without Vanellope glitching all over the place, she was the unquestioned queen of the racetrack, with the highest stats and the fastest car. And now she was the president to all who resided within _Sugar Rush_, beloved by everybody, just as Vanellope had been until a few days ago.

A satisfied smirk crossed Taffyta's lips whenever she thought about how quickly and easily she'd risen to the top in just one short week. _This president gig isn't so bad,_ she thought. _Win a few races, shake a few hands, you've got it made!_

A tug on the hem of her racing jacket snapped her out of her reverie. She looked down to see Sour Bill, looking more put out than usual, clutching a large folder full of papers.

"Hate to bother you, Ms. President," he groaned, "but before the race begins, you really do need to review this fudge-drilling proposal. It's been on the table all week long…"

Taffyta sniffed derisively. "Fudge-drilling, huh? What's that all about?"

"Well, ma'am," Sour Bill droned on, "the Peanut Buttercups of West Candy Hollow want to construct a resort hotel on the outskirts of Candy Cane Forest, and they want permission to tap the natural underground hot fudge reserves for the spa."

"All right, fine, go ahead and let them," Taffyta said without a second's hesitation.

Sour Bill looked puzzled. "But ma'am," he continued, "tapping the hot fudge wells is an expensive and dangerous process, and it could lead to a number of very large sinkholes…"

Taffyta scowled. She had better things to do than listen to this trash. "Well then, _don't_ drill for the stupid fudge! Jeez! What do you want me to do?"

Sour Bill's normally hangdog expression contorted into something resembling disdain.

"With all due respect, Madam President, I'd appreciate it if you did the job you were elected to do," he drawled.

Crumbelina DiCaramello looked up from beneath the hood of her car. "Taffyta, you know you have to make tough decisions like that if you're going to be president. But just between you and me, I hope you give 'em the okay to build. I can't wait to visit that spa!"

"Now, hold on a second!" Jubileena Bing-Bing piped up as she tossed her socket wrench into the front seat. "Those hot fudge reserves are very fragile! We can't tamper with the game's ecosystem too much! It could do serious damage to the code!"

"Well, that's why Vanellope had the idea to move the hotel to the foot of Soft-Serve Summit," Adorabeezle Winterpop interjected. "There's already natural hot chocolate springs there, and she figured – "

"Oh, to heck with Vanellope!" Taffyta blurted out. "She didn't know how to run this game like I do! I'm like a million times the president she ever was!"

"Then when are you gonna prove it?"

Taffyta was stunned as she turned to see who had made such a bold inquiry. It was Candlehead.

"I'm just sayin', y'know," Candlehead mumbled, tugging on one of her green pigtails. "I don't really know much about politics and stuff, but I was thinking about all the things you said during your campaign and your inauguration speech, and, well, maybe it's just me, but it kinda doesn't seem like you have any real ideas for how to lead us."

"Y'know, I almost hate to admit this, but she's right," Gloyd Orangeboar said, squinting at Taffyta. "You talked and talked about what a lousy president Vanellope was. But when did you ever tell us what _you_ would do better than her?"

Taffyta scoffed, trying to ignore the prickly feeling that was expanding on the back of her neck. "Well, y'know, I, uh… I think _that's_ pretty obvious, don't you?"

"You mean like after the inauguration this morning when you mentioned to me that you planned to repeal Miss Vanellope's amendment that puts the Random Roster Race on a different track every night?" Sour Bill mumbled, with a surprising hint of a smirk.

"_What?!_" Minty Zaki squeaked incredulously. "You'd get rid of that? I thought that was a great change! That was one of the best things Vanellope ever did!"

"Yeah," Snowanna Rainbeau shouted, "and don't forget, that's what led to them building that new track outside the Kart Bakery! She put people to work! What would _you_ have us do, just run the Royal Raceway over and over again like we used to?"

"Just because it's _your_ own personal track now, Madam President?" Swizzle Malarkey added disdainfully.

Taffyta fidgeted against the front of her car. The itchiness had spread down her whole back now. Every racer was glaring at her with skepticism, and even the candy spectators were starting to mutter restlessly.

"What was so bad about Vanellope, anyway?" Jubileena protested. "I never had anything against her! She was a great president and a great racer, and she was nice and friendly to all of us! And the players, they loved her too! You saw how happy they were whenever they got to play as her!"

"But what about the glitching?" Taffyta insisted, sounding a little more desperate. "She'd never have won all those races if it wasn't for that weird little glitch of hers!"

"Heck, we never used to care about who won the stupid races!" Minty piped up. "It was _you_ with all that smooth talk about cheating and unfair advantages that got us all caught up in a frenzy!"

"Yeah!" Adorabeezle interjected. "All that stuff about how we all deserve a chance at our own personal victory! Since when has being a playable character _ever_ been about personal victory? This is supposed to be about helping the _player_ win, not about which one of us crosses the finish line first!"

"Vanellope was cool, man!" Snowanna added. "She made this game more popular than it ever was before! And it was _because_ of that glitch, Taffyta, and the players loved her for it! _We_ loved her for it!"

"Aw, shucks, guys, I didn't think you cared!"

The racers all turned around in unison. There, at the foot of the bleachers, stood Vanellope, surrounded by Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun.

"Vanellope!" Rancis shouted. "You're back!"

"You're darn right I'm back!" Vanellope snapped, glaring at Taffyta with utter condescension in her eyes. "And I just dug up some pretty intriguing dirt about our new president!"

Taffyta leapt off the hood of her car, stalking towards her rival. "What do you want, glitch? A recount? I won this election fair and square!"

Vanellope laughed out loud. "Muttonfudge, I'm surprised you even know what those words mean. Calhoun, show 'em the photo."

Calhoun pulled out a small handheld gadget that looked like a fountain pen. She clicked a button on the end, and a hologram shot out of it, projected over the racetrack for all to see. It was a close-up of the tire tracks that Vanellope had seen on the floor of her old home.

"You all know about Diet Cola Mountain," Vanellope said, pacing back and forth in front of the starting line. "But what you _don't_ know is that there's an abandoned bonus level inside it. _I _only know about it because I lived there for fifteen years while Turbo had you all turned into toffee-nosed zombies. And yet, despite the fact that I'm the only one who knows how to get into that bonus level, take a looky-loo at whose tire tracks I found all over the inside!"

The tread marks bore an endless pattern of three dots in a row. Everyone gasped as they recognized them as Taffyta's tire tracks.

"That's right," Vanellope continued. "When I nudged our fair president in Monday night's qualifying race, she skidded off the track and accidentally warped through the hidden entrance to the interior of Diet Cola Mountain! Surely, she had no idea where she was, so she decided to just follow the path in front of her – which eventually took her out the other side of the mountain and spit her back out onto the main track! Right when I, in first place at the time, was passing her! And then I had that _horrible_ crash that never would have happened if _she hadn't taken the shortcut!_"

Taffyta began to sweat as eight pairs of eyes turned to look at her. She could feel the heat rising in her face.

"Hey," she stammered, "I didn't mean to do it! It just sort of, y'know, happened…and then I, uh, didn't bother to tell anyone…"

"You _cheated!_" Candlehead spit incredulously. "And after all that junk you told me and Rancis about fair play! How could you sink so low, you stinkin' hippo crate?"

"I think you mean 'hypocrite'," Swizzle muttered under his breath.

A low roar of dissent began to drift in from the stands. The other racers all looked furious.

Taffyta wiped the sweat off her brow. "Well…well, what about Tuesday's race, huh? She said she wouldn't glitch and she still tried to!"

"Yeah, because a certain _somebody_ cut my brakes, if you'll recall!" Vanellope shot back, her eyes darting towards Rancis. The expression on his face was a bizarre mix of bitterness and nausea.

"Well, you can't blame me for that!" Taffyta spluttered. "I already told you, I was doing test runs with Minty and Crumbelina! And besides, Rancis already confessed, didn't you, Rancis? Go ahead, tell her again how you wanted to take her down a peg! Go on, tell her!"

Rancis didn't reply. He just sat there in his kart, his lower lip quivering.

"I said _tell her_, you little peanut butter puke!" Taffyta screeched.

"No," Rancis said softly.

The blotchy red color drained from Taffyta's face as quickly as it had risen there.

"I'm done taking orders from you," Rancis said, his voice rising unevenly as if even he couldn't believe what he was saying. "You told me that you were doing what was best for _Sugar Rush_ and everyone in it, but you lied, Taffyta. You lied to Vanellope, you lied to all the other racers, and you lied to _me._ And then you had me lie to everybody too! Nobody needs to know, you said, because it was all for a greater good! But it was all just to satisfy your stupid ego, wasn't it? Well, I'm through playing your stooge, you hear me? I was an idiot to ever let you push me around! I've sacrificed my dignity and hurt the people I care about just to impress you, but darn it, you're just not worth it!"

Vanellope was amazed. Even she hadn't expected this.

Tears streaming down his cheeks, Rancis turned and looked Vanellope straight in the eyes. "I didn't want to cut your brake line, Vanellope! I could never, _ever_ dream of doing anything like that! But Taffyta made me do it, and told me I'd have to take the rap alone if I ever got found out! She said she…" He gulped, blinking back more tears. "She said she'd break into the game's code and dummy you out again if I didn't!"

"_I wasn't really gonna do it!"_ Taffyta screamed desperately, as another wave of horrified gasps rippled through the crowd. "I don't even know how! I was just trying to scare him a little!"

"Turbo!" Jubileena cried, pointing at Taffyta in horror. "You're worse than Turbo!"

"No, worse would be if she was actually smart enough to pull any of this off," Vanellope said, a smirk beginning to form on her face. "She's just a selfish little brat who talks a load of bull-honkey and thinks this whole game deserves to revolve around her."

"What?" Taffyta stammered, laughing nervously. "C'mon, guys, it was all just a joke! Really, that's all it was! I mean, I… uh, y'know, 'cause I… um, that is, uh… _it was a joke!_"

"Funny, I don't hear anyone laughing," Vanellope said smoothly.

Taffyta turned around, brushing her disheveled hair out of her eyes, to see the other racers staring at her with a mix of stunned disbelief and scandalized contempt. A loud chorus of boos went up from the crowd, as the candy spectators from Taffyta's box began hurling their banners and pennants at her in disgust.

"So, let's recap here," Vanellope said to the crowd. "We're currently living under the administration of a president who accidentally cheated in a qualifier race and 'conveniently' forgot to tell anybody, _deliberately_ cheated in the next race and even exploited one of her friends to do it, and basically lied right to everybody's face about all of it, all so she could get a little bit of spotlight to herself. I don't know about you guys, but that sounds like pretty stinky behavior for a politician!"

Wynchell and Duncan stepped out from behind the bleachers, brandishing a set of licorice handcuffs. Taffyta's stomach seemed to drop out when she saw them.

"Officers," Vanellope said, suppressing a small giggle, "do your duty."

As the cops advanced on her, Taffyta leaped back into her hard candy kart. But before she could start it, Ralph dodged in front of the vehicle and picked it up by the front wheels.

"Sorry, kid, but your license to drive just expired!"

And with barely any effort, Ralph squeezed the wheels so hard that they crumbled into dust.

Taffyta's eyes darted around the track. Wynchell and Duncan were closing in. In a flash, she dove out of her crippled vehicle and landed on the hood of Rancis' peanut butter cup kart, knocking him out of the driver's seat with her elbow.

"Outta my way, traitor!" she bellowed as she leapt into the seat. Before Ralph or the cops could grab her, she had revved up and blasted over the starting line.

Without missing a step, Vanellope jumped into her own car and started the engine. "Pedals to the floor, guys!" she called to her fellow racers. "Who's ready to go strawberry picking?"


	10. Chapter 10

Taffyta roared up the track, with thirteen other cars and the entire _Sugar Rush_ police force hot on her trail. Ralph was perched on the back of Vanellope's kart; Rancis was squeezed in next to Candlehead, just as eager to get his car back as he was to bring justice to the girl who stole it. High above the convoy of candied vehicles, Calhoun and Felix flew in on their hoverboard, with Sour Bill clinging to the back.

The chase rounded a corner, and Taffyta snagged a Power-Up box without even meaning to. She glanced behind her and gasped; the gap between her and her pursuers was closing.

Calhoun drew her plasma cannon and took aim at the peanut butter cup kart below. "It's a tough shot, but I've definitely scored tougher…"

"Jiminy jaminy, Tamora!" Felix yelped, clutching his wife's waist in shock. "She's just a kid!"

"Calm down, baby, I've got this thing set on stun," Calhoun assured him. "All it'll do is knock her out for a minute or – "

"INCOMING!" Sour Bill shouted.

Taffyta had just shot three spinning Peanut Butter Boomerangs out of the back of Rancis' kart, and they were soaring straight at the hoverboard. Calhoun screamed and tried to swerve, but she wasn't fast enough – one of the peanut butter cups struck the side of the board, exploding in a shower of sparks and chocolate. The hoverboard wobbled dangerously as Calhoun fought to regain her balance. In the confusion, she accidentally pulled the trigger.

A plasma beam shot out and blasted a massive hole in the candy cane guardrail, and Taffyta drove through it into the chocolate-coated countryside. Vanellope followed her, as did everyone else. Calhoun was forced to bring the hoverboard down for a landing, carving a deep gouge in the track. Sour Bill lost his grip and rolled away, coming to rest against the guardrail.

"See, this is why I don't like kids," Calhoun growled resentfully, as Felix clutched a hand to his chest and tried to catch his breath.

Racing along the plains of _Sugar Rush_ at over 100 miles an hour, Taffyta dodged the massive gumdrops and jawbreakers that littered the landscape like boulders. She had no idea where she was going, but she was still no closer to losing the racers who were howling for justice.

Vanellope pounded the gas, but found that the other racers were outstripping her anyway. "What's wrong?" she shouted above the roar of the engine. "How come I can't hit my top speed?"

Ralph looked around, then realized what the problem was. "I'm too heavy!" he called. "You're carrying 643 extra pounds with me on this thing! I'm gonna have to jump!"

"_Are you crazy?"_ Vanellope squeaked. "We're doin' almost a hundred here!"

"I'll tuck and roll!" Ralph shouted back. "I get thrown off an eleven-story building fifty times a day, I can take it! Besides, after four nights in a row, I think you deserve to beat Taffyta in a race again!"

Vanellope smirked, then gave a quick thumbs-up. "Catch you later, chumbo!"

Ralph returned the smile, then pitched sideways and tumbled off the edge of the car, rolling to a rather ungainly stop in the dust as Vanellope's car peeled off into the distance. He clambered to his feet and brushed himself off.

"Go get 'em, Vanellope," he wheezed.

Taffyta jerked the wheel violently as she made a break for Candy Cane Forest. _Maybe I can lose them there_, she thought. But the deafening rumble of engines behind her reminded her that she hadn't shaken them yet.

As the expansive grove of peppermint-striped trees grew closer on the horizon, Taffyta looked to her left and gasped. Vanellope was right next to her.

"So what was that you were saying about how I could never have beat you if I couldn't glitch?" Vanellope shouted, sideswiping the peanut butter cup kart with a grin. Taffyta swerved uncontrollably to the right, caromed off a boulder-sized bonbon, and got thrown clear as the kart flipped end over end, spraying chocolate crumbs everywhere. Taffyta skidded to a stop at the outer edge of a large round pool of liquid green taffy surrounding a humongous candy cane tree.

Vanellope's car screeched to a halt as the rest of the racers pulled up behind her. Breathing heavily, Taffyta scrambled to her feet and leapt desperately across the gumdrop stepping stones that led to the tree in the center. The angry shouts of the racers behind her let her know that they were in no mood to negotiate with her. If she could only climb to the top, maybe she could be spared…

But as she jumped to the first branch, she heard an all-too-familiar VOOP. She looked up to see Vanellope standing on the branch, her hands on her hips in a cocky sort of way.

"Now, this is just silly," Vanellope said smugly. "Don't you know skunks can't climb trees?"

Frantically, Taffyta jumped for a higher branch, but with another VOOP, Vanellope glitched onto that one too. "Bet you wish you could do this now, huh?"

VOOP. VOOP. VOOP. Every time Taffyta moved higher up the tree, Vanellope was there to meet her. The crowd of racers below stood rapt with attention. Ralph soon came thudding up behind them, followed closely by Calhoun, Felix, and Bill on the repaired hoverboard.

Finally, when they were almost near the top, Taffyta made one final frantic bid for safety. She leapt wildly out onto one of the frailest branches, grabbing it with both hands and dangling from it like a helpless kitten. Down below, the other racers couldn't help gasping in surprise.

"Ha!" Taffyta jeered. "Let's see you follow me out here, big shot!"

Vanellope crossed her arms and leaned against the trunk of the tree. "Well, given the situation, I think I'd rather not."

Taffyta gulped. All her insides seemed to vanish as she looked up at the branch she was clinging so precariously to.

It was double-striped.

Before Taffyta could react, the branch vanished in a puff of pixels. She screamed and flailed as she fell, plunging unceremoniously into the taffy moat with a loud _PLOP_.

"Ooh," Ralph hissed, flinching. "And that stuff's really hard to get off, too."

Vanellope glitched back down to the ground, reappearing directly in front of the crowd. "Well, that oughta help her stay sweet!"

"Vanellope, we're so sorry!" Swizzle sputtered, wringing his hands. "We let Taffyta talk us into making a terrible mistake! I know we're a bunch of weasels and we don't deserve it, but can you ever forgive us?"

Vanellope looked as if she were thinking hard. "What did you say you all were?"

"Weasels!" Swizzle repeated. "Horrible, wretched weasels!"

"And?" Vanellope motioned.

"And…uh, inconsiderate crumb-bums!" Jubileena threw in.

"_And?_"

"A swarm of stupid, spineless stinkbrains!" Candlehead yelped.

"Ooh, nice use of alliteration," Vanellope giggled. "All right, fine, I forgive you."

Taffyta splashed onto the bank of the moat, gasping and covered in taffy. Wynchell and Duncan stepped out of the crowd, backed by several of the bear claw SWAT team.

"Taffyta Muttonfudge, you're under arrest for tampering with a fellow racer's vehicle," Duncan muttered, slapping the handcuffs on her taffy-coated wrists.

"And also for being a general pain in the tush," Wynchell added.

Tears began to well in Taffyta's eyes. "That's not an arrestable offense!" she choked.

"It will be if Proposition 64 passes," Sour Bill mumbled.

Vanellope turned to face Rancis. "So, the other night, when you gave me all that weird 'slow and steady' jazz…"

Rancis blushed slightly. "Yeah…well, I was trying to warn you about your brakes. I would have told you outright, but Taffyta was right there…" He gulped nervously. "I-I-I'm sorry, Vanellope, I really am, and I can totally understand if you never want to talk to me again…"

"Well, that would make _me_ the jerk, then, wouldn't it?" Vanellope laughed, tousling Rancis' hair playfully. Rancis smiled and blushed even deeper.

"Hey," Adorabeezle said, "if Taffyta's been arrested, doesn't that mean we need a new president?"

"Y'know, I do believe you're right!" Ralph beamed. "I guess you're gonna have to have another election. Who here votes for Vanellope?"

"ME! Me me me!" came the chorus of voices as every racer put their hand in the air.

Calhoun shook her hair out of her face and smiled. "The 'me's' have it! Looks like you're back in business, short-stuff!"

"Aw, golly! I just love a happy ending!" Felix squealed, cuddling up to Calhoun.

Vanellope jumped up onto Ralph's shoulders. "Very well then, allow me to make my first official decree of my second term in office. Wynchell, Duncan – release the prisoner!"

The racers all exchanged confused looks. Wynchell and Duncan shrugged, but did what they were ordered. Taffyta rubbed her wrists gingerly. Her eyes, the only part of her not obscured by taffy, were still red with tears.

"Taffyta, what you did was shameful, rotten, despicable, and overall not very nice," Vanellope proclaimed with a smile. "And frankly, I don't think sending you to jail is going to be enough of a punishment. Instead, I've got an even _better_ idea…"

* * *

Litwak's Arcade buzzed with activity, as it always did on Saturday mornings. Kids ran every which way among the din of over two dozen video games. The bone-cracking punches of _Street Fighter II_ mixed with the whomping techno beats of _Dance Dance Revolution_ and the death throes of screeching Cy-Bugs from _Hero's Duty_. At the back wall, a line had already formed at _Fix-It Felix Jr._, full of gamers eager to unlock that cool new Q-bert bonus level everybody was talking about.

And another line had begun over at _Sugar Rush_, where word had spread quickly among the arcade regulars that Vanellope Von Schweetz was a playable character again. The young girl in the driver's seat cheered as she drove Vanellope's candy kart over the finish line, placing first for the third time in a row. Her friend shoved her playfully and said "All right, c'mon, I get to play as Vanellope this time!"

* * *

That night, Vanellope won the Random Roster Race handily. But she was proud of herself not for the victory, but because of how she'd earned it. She had run the entire race without glitching once, and had sworn to her fellow racers that from now on, she would save her glitchy powers only for when there was someone playing the game. "After all," she said from the winner's circle, "never let it be said that I'm not an advocate of fair play!"

The crowd cheered, with Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun shouting their support from the top box as usual. Vanellope smiled and waved back at them.

Rancis had come in second place, and he shuffled over to Vanellope, his hands behind his back. "Um, Vanellope?" he began. "I, uh, wanted to congratulate you on your victory. You really did great out there!"

"Thanks, Fluggerbutter," Vanellope grinned. "You didn't do so bad yourself!"

"And, uh, I know this is kind of a moot point since the election's already over," he continued, color rising in his cheeks again, "but, uh, I just wanted to let you know that…um, if I hadn't been in jail at the time…well, um, I was gonna vote for you."

Vanellope smiled even more broadly. "Aw, that's sweet, Rancis. And let me just say that I really, really appreciate – Holy Skittles, what the heck is that?" she yelped, pointing over Rancis' shoulder.

Rancis turned, not knowing what to expect. And as he looked around, Vanellope leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

His heart soaring, Rancis giggled incoherently and fainted, his face redder than a Hot Tamale. Vanellope smirked and rolled her eyes. "Boys…" she muttered.

"Smooth move, Vanellope!" Candlehead laughed. "So where's Taffyta, anyway?"

Vanellope put her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. "Oh, probably getting ready for her first mandatory meeting, I suppose. Ralph's gonna bring her over there later."

"That was a very nice thing you did for Taffyta, you know," Jubileena said. "A lesser person would have just thrown her in prison and forgot about it."

"Yeah, well," Vanellope replied, nudging Rancis' unconscious body with her foot, "I try to stay sweet."

* * *

"…Technically, I'm not really a bad guy. I'm more like a rival. But you know, there's a line between rivalry and villainy. And I'm ashamed to admit it, but I crossed that line and left it in the dust. I wanted the glory that Vanellope had, but when I crawled out of that taffy and saw the looks on the other kids' faces…well, I realized I'd gone way too far. I lied, I cheated, I took advantage of my friends…I guess I should consider myself lucky that I didn't get anything worse than just a one-month ban from the Random Roster Races. Because, y'know, when I think about that awful Turbo creep who hijacked our game for all those years…man, it really scares me to think how close I came to going down the same path as him. I want to get myself back on track – no pun intended. And if going to these meetings will help me work out what I'm feeling, well then, heck, I'm all for it."

Polite applause rang through the break room as Taffyta sat back down. "Very good share, Taffyta," Clyde said softly. "Recognizing these issues is the first step towards acceptance, and that's what we're here to help you with."

Ralph put a supportive hand on Taffyta's shoulder. "Hey, all us antagonists go through this sort of thing. I mean, jeez, I know I did. But I've come to terms with who I am, and with a little bit of support, I know you will too."

"Just remember Bad-Anon mantra, little strawberry girl," Zangief purred through his heavy accent. "One game at a time."

"Rrrrnghh!" Zombie agreed.

Clyde rose from his seat. "All right, now it's getting late, so let's wrap it up as we always do with the Bad Guy Affirmation."

With the sound of a dozen scraping chairs, the room full of video game villains stood up and linked hands (or claws or tentacles or whatever they had). Taffyta joined them in their low, rumbling chant:

"_I am bad, and that's good. I'll never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."_

LEVEL COMPLETE


End file.
